“With the people in the tents,” she said right away. “The dots on the map.”
“The electromagnetic field is down,” Marshall said. “I can feel it.”
I could, too, like a buzzing in my fingertips. I could jump right now. “Let’s get out of here. I don’t want to wait.” I don’t want to think about Emily jumping so far away from me, about Blake being gone … yeah, let’s get out of here quick.
Emily touched my cheek, trying to get my attention again. “Chief Marshall is the best time jumper. You don’t have to worry about anyone’s getting hurt, okay?”
I knew she said that because it was obvious everyone thought I’d overexerted my mind on the jump here trying to protect Holly from injury. Maybe I had, but then again, I’d just done a half-jump to the 1950s prior to my excursion to the future and was pretty spent.
“And remember, Courtney can time-jump, too, so you’ll have plenty of help getting everyone back safely,” she added.
That’s right, Courtney can time-travel. I’d almost forgotten about our arrival in 3200, when those faceless men had attacked us and before any of them could touch her, she kept vanishing and then reappearing like a magic trick. But based on how shocked she was by her own movement, I wasn’t convinced she’d been put in the expert time-jumper category just yet.
“Thanks. I’ll remember that.” I gave Emily another squeeze and whispered good-bye before releasing her.
I stood between Dad and Courtney as we watched Lonnie take Emily’s hand and vanish, heading to a time way beyond my present but far from this destroyed future.
The smell of smoke grew stronger and flakes of ashes floated through the air, so we quickly moved deeper into the forest. Even though I was ready to leave right that second, Dad and Marshall both agreed it would be best if we rested for at least a few minutes. Stewart and Mason set up some chairs and started a fire and we passed around bottles of water in silence. Holly came and sat beside me while Dad, Marshall, and Adam were deep in discussion about exactly which point each of us left in 2009.
“Hey,” she said, handing over her half-empty water.
I took a long swig and then handed it back. “What’s on your mind?”
“What isn’t?” She glanced wearily at me. “I just can’t believe they’re gone—Grayson, Sasha … and Blake. I knew he was on a mission and all but I didn’t realize…”
“Me either.” I kept my eyes straight ahead, fighting off tears. I could still feel that moment in the room with him. I could have dragged him out. I could have done the job for him.
“I keep thinking about what he said in his memory files, the descriptions of the rooms full of kids. They’re all gone now.” Her voice shook. She paused and took a breath. “We did that. We…”
“I think that’s the bigger picture Marshall was talking about. We managed to blow up that building, knowing there were experiments … children … inside and despite it all we still had the instinct to survive. Maybe this proves that Blake is a better person than all of us. Was a better person.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Holly agreed.
Courtney joined our conversation and I could tell she wanted to say something so I looked up at her and waited. “I’m so sorry about Emily getting in.”
There were so many questions and blanks still to be filled in from the last couple hours. “How did she get away from you? And it was just her, not you and Lonnie?”
Courtney shook her head. “It was awful, Jackson. She saw some guy and took off running. We couldn’t get her before … before they did. I don’t know what she was thinking. Maybe she thought it was you?”
I patted Courtney on the shoulder. “It’s okay. She’s fine now. We all are.” I looked at my sister, remembering what Emily had just mentioned. “Do you really think you can do the time jump back? Does it feel like something you know how to do?”
She managed a half smile or maybe more of a smirk. “My brain damage is worse than your brain damage and you know what that means, right?”
“What?” Holly and I both said.
“I’m accessing the area that allows for time travel to a much greater degree than you are.” The smile faded and I knew she’d just recited something Grayson had probably told her. Maybe they talked about it the other day after she’d had her seizure and he’d examined her.
Not wanting to cast another shadow over us right before our big moment, I grinned at my sister, and said, “You think you’re better than me? Game on, then. We’ll see who comes out on top when we get back home.”
Holly gave a little smile then gnawed on her lower lip. “But there’s still so many doors open when you’re dealing with time travel, right? What are the reversal possibilities? When will we know if changes are permanent?”
“Well that’s just lovely to think about,” Stewart mumbled.
“Don’t think about it,” Dad snapped. “I think it’s best we focus on moving ahead, which for us means heading back in time.”
I stood up and reached for my backpack, tossing it over my shoulder. “Let’s do this. I’m ready.”
“You sure?” Dad asked, concern filling his face.
I knew this had to be difficult for him after witnessing my near death from time travel not too long ago and Grayson’s warnings about my possible brain damage, but so far, ever since Dad tried to shoot me in the woods, I’d had these ultrasharp senses that I could literally feel coursing through my body. Maybe that was the buzzing that Emily described when she was in the presence of time jumpers.
“Something we all need to be aware of,” Marshall said. “Because our returns might not align perfectly with our points of departure, you may encounter duplicate versions of yourself.”
Holly’s eyes went wide with fear. “And what exactly do we do if that happens?”
Marshall’s gaze traveled over Holly’s head, not making direct eye contact. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“Great,” Stewart and Mason both mumbled under their breath.
The impending time jump provided a good distraction from looking at each person around me and analyzing the possibilities of duplicate selves and the impossibilities due to horrible things that happened before the jump to the future.
We’ll cross that bridge when—and if—we come to it. For once, I was one hundred percent supportive of a Chief Marshall plan.
“We are returning to the exact day and location that Jackson left 2009 because that is the most natural time jump for him to make with the lowest probability of his sustaining a fatal injury. Those of you who were deceased on that day or left on another day, we will take extra precautions for you after we arrive and head to either Agent Meyer’s place or the underground Tempest headquarters, understood?”
We all nodded a yes and then I looked around at everyone, suddenly remembering one other very important detail. “We were all being held up by Eyewall agents when we left. They would have watched us vanish.”
“Dude! That’s right,” Mason said. “Holly was our hostage.”
Tension filled Marshall’s face. “All right then, better play the hostage role, Agent Flynn. Everybody, have your weapons ready. Hopefully, the element of surprise will give us a few seconds to react before they do.”
I drew my gun but turned the safety on. I didn’t want it to fire accidentally if my brain exploded or something. My legs were shaking but I tried to play it cool and reached for Holly, pressing her back against my chest. “Let’s go, Hostage, assume the position.”
She laughed but I could feel the nerves leaking through. “Are you scared?” she whispered.
I leaned down so my lips were touching her ear. “Incredibly.”
“We don’t have to stay enemies, you know,” Holly said. “Even if I am an Eyewall agent.”
A lightness filled my chest, relieving me of some of the more recent pain. “I know. We’ll figure it out.”
After that, I opened my mind, focused on the time and space between here and home. Focused on the mom
ent we left—smelling it, tasting it, breathing it. The world vanished and pulled me into a new oblivion.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DAY 1: 2009
Two things were immediately apparent as we landed back in the present:
1) My brain didn’t explode.
2) The Eyewall firing squad wasn’t waiting there for our return.
* * *
I knew we’d hit the mark just fine. I felt myself rejoining with the exact millisecond that I’d left 2009. I also knew that hitting this mark was the most natural form of time travel for my brain to handle. I wasn’t sure exactly what I had expected to find. Possibly the parade of Eyewall agents that had been holding us all at gunpoint when we left? Maybe Senator Healy or my dead body lying outside that cage they’d kept the other version of me in for months.
After making my initial assessment, I released Holly and was immediately bombarded by Dad, Courtney, and Holly, who took turns lifting my sleeves, checking for bruises, and looking at my ears to check for bleeding. Dad produced a flashlight and shined it in my eyes.
“You’re okay?” Dad asked. “Any pain at all?”
I knew the answer was important, and since I hadn’t noticed myself dying the first time around, I took a second to step back to shake out my limbs and slowly go through each section of my body piece by piece. There were some sore places that I’d had before I left 3200, but nothing new.
I looked up at him, my eyes wide with relief. “I’m … I’m fine. Really.”
He sighed and laughed at the same time and then hugged me. Courtney joined in until we were finally interrupted by Mason’s asking the most important question of the day, “Okay, so, where’s Eyewall? Are you sure this is the right time?”
“I’m positive.” I stepped back from the group hug and drew my gun, ready for whatever happened to be on the other side of that door. “Is everyone else okay?”
“I’m fine,” both Stewart and Mason replied. Marshall, of course, survived with no problems at all, and Dad, Holly, and Courtney appeared unharmed.
I elbowed Courtney in the side, feeling light with relief. “My jump was totally better than yours. I’m pretty sure I landed a couple milliseconds before you.”
She snorted a laugh. “Did not.”
As the eight of us braced ourselves for a fight, tentatively stepping through the door of the small room and into the hallway, passing the warehouse cage that the other me had been held in, all we found was eerie silence and no trace that anyone had entered this building for quite some time.
“There’s dust on the floor,” Stewart pointed out.
Dad leaned over and examined the untouched ground in front of us. “No footprints.”
“Do you think it’s different because we destroyed future Eyewall?” Adam asked.
Holly exchanged glances with him and I could see the questions silently arising—what would that mean for them? Were their lives altered, too?
No one had an answer. Not even Marshall. When we left the building and walked outside into the warm summer air, it became apparent that the changes to 2009 extended far beyond the absence of Eyewall. The streets were nearly silent. Only a couple cabs passed by, no buses, no people on the sidewalks. Which was why the sound of running footsteps caused everyone but Courtney to raise their guns and point them at the lone figure of a man approaching us in the darkness.
“Agent Collins?” Holly said, lowering her weapon. Adam did the same, stepping toward the man who had been their Eyewall superior. But I knew Agent Collins wasn’t on Eyewall’s side—not after he warned me about protecting Holly when I interrogated him in Tempest headquarters before leaving 2009. Maybe we had landed a few minutes early and they were just now preparing to rush into the building? But that didn’t explain the dust, the lack of footprints, the absence of Healy and the caged version of me.
Marshall held his gun steady but also moved toward the middle-aged agent who, I noticed, hadn’t drawn a weapon and didn’t appear surprised to see the eight of us here.
“Dr. Melvin sent me,” Collins said, lifting his hands and facing Marshall. “We shouldn’t discuss too much out here. There are a lot of government personnel monitoring this area.”
Dr. Melvin’s supposed to be dead, so either something is off or he’s taking orders from a dead man.
“Which government personnel?” Dad asked, looking Collins over. “And why are they monitoring the area?”
“The virus.” Collins’s eyes were wide as if he was afraid to tell us the truth. “Because of the virus.”
Marshall looked around, taking everything in. For the first time ever, I watched the careful composure drop from Marshall’s face and form something other than anger or greed. I’d seen both of those looks on him before. But this was different. The expression that filled his face right then was a cross between wonder and panic. Neither of which was too reassuring. “Deludere Virus,” he said under his breath.
Collins’s expression was grim but he gave a nod to Marshall. “We need to get underground.”
“Is it contagious?” Courtney asked. “Should we hold our breath or something?”
“No one knows exactly how it’s transmitted.” Collins turned his back on us, pulling out his own weapon and heading down the street, eyes darting around as we all followed behind him.
“But you know, don’t you?” Holly said.
Collins looked over his shoulder at her and then faced forward again. “Dr. Melvin has a theory. I’ll let him explain.”
“Melvin’s alive?” Stewart asked.
Collins took a moment to assess her question before finally answering. “Yes.”
I forced back the sickening and gut-wrenching image of Dr. Melvin lying dead on the floor of his office, sheet white and cold as ice. He’s alive. That’s all that matters.
“This is totally going to turn all I Am Legend, isn’t it?” I whispered to Adam, who was now beside me. “The crazy monsters are going to come flying at us any second trying to eat our flesh.”
Adam’s eyebrows lifted. “Deludere. It’s Latin for—”
“Delusion,” Stewart finished. “A false belief.”
We all fell silent at that revelation. I had no idea if this was connected to the merging timelines and the delusions Holly, Stewart, and Adam had all experienced along with Dr. Melvin.
The entrance to the underground CIA headquarters was in a desolate subway station. Agent Collins glanced around before opening a heavy brown door, revealing a concrete staircase, with rusty metal railings and paint peeling from the walls. The stench in the air was similar to the smell you’d find after leaving sweaty gym clothes zipped up in a bag for a week. We trudged down several flights of stairs; Holly’s arm brushed mine a few too many times to be accidental. I had envisioned our return to 2009 as the moment she’d stop relying on me, take off on her own, and go back to her life, but even without any words from her, I could feel them floating across the space between us—I’m not done with this. I’m not done with us yet. Even in light of the looming mysterious changes to 2009, I felt a tiny surge of hope simply walking beside her, watching the walls slowly crumble between us.
It took about twenty minutes to reach headquarters, which were still located below the NYU Hospital, despite all the changes. We found Dr. Melvin in a lab with Lily Kendrick. Of course, like an idiot, I ran up and hugged her. Instead of leaping with joy at my reappearance, she stiffened in the way you might when a relative you don’t remember tries to hug you. I released her and stepped back.
“Um … this is new,” she said to me before looking at Stewart and then Mason. “Where the hell have you two been for the past three months? I thought you were dead! We all thought you were dead.”
“Uh…” Mason stuttered.
“Oh my lord.” Dr. Melvin had wide, crazy eyes as he moved toward Courtney. “I can’t … I mean … how?”
Our group had now grown to eleven members and we were huddled in the lab, everyone looking confused until Dad stepped
into the middle of the room and held his hands up.
“All right, obviously we are not where we expected to be, so before anyone has a heart attack or draws weapons, let’s assess the situation, get our bearings.” Dad nodded toward Marshall, who walked to the giant whiteboard and picked up a dry-erase marker.
“Collins, you first,” Marshall said. “State your name, position, and year of recruitment.”
Collins snapped to attention, obviously recognizing Marshall as his boss, which was another strange phenomenon since he’s been an Eyewall leader before we left 2009. “Agent Mike Collins. Graduate of Dunston Academy’s early CIA recruitment program. Tempest Agent. Official CIA recruitment in 1989. Joined Tempest in 1996.”
Dunston Academy? The teenage Agent Meyer Senior in the 1950s had told me he graduated from that school, too, as well as his father.
“Tempest?” Holly and Adam said together.
Marshall let out a frustrated breath and then grabbed Courtney’s arm, shoving another marker in her hand. “Okay, in addition, state which individuals currently in this lab you recognize and have interacted with in person and under what circumstances. Kid A will record those responses.”
Courtney glared at him but uncapped the marker anyway. “Kid A happens to have a name.”
Collins let his gaze drift around the room as he listed off his answer. “Dr. Melvin, met him on my first day with Tempest. Chief Marshall, also met him on day one. Agent Kendrick, I oversaw her training beginning in 2008. Agent Sterling and Agent Stewart started working under me in 2007. Haven’t seen them since they left for a mission in the Middle East three months ago.” His eyes fell on Dad. “Agent Meyer is my superior and the man who recruited me from my former CIA division.”
Marshall nodded toward Holly and Adam. “Do you recognize those two?”
“No, sir.”
“Maybe he always worked for Tempest,” I heard Holly whisper to Adam. “A double agent.”
Marshall rested a hand on Courtney’s shoulder while she wrote responses as quickly as possible. “And Child A?” Then he pointed at me. “Or Child B?”